The challenge of covering the COVID-19 pandemic, a fast moving and evolving story that has wide-ranging social, political, health economic consequence on the global, national local stage.
Journalism has value. You only need to read the coverage out of Seattle or Milan or Beijing to appreciate the commitment of the people reporting these stories. They believe that what they are doing is worthy of their personal sacrifice. And indeed it is why all of us are here: because in the midst of a pandemic, having quality information is second only to the work of doctors and scientists.
How well has the UK news media kept the public informed and held the authorities to account during the COVID-19 crisis? Leading British journalists and political communicators discuss how the news media has coped with the practical, editorial and political challenges of covering coronavirus. Jul 15, 2020
That burden is ours. Much has been said and written in recent years about whether journalism can be trusted and whether it matters; some of it has been spewed out of the Oval Office. The question has been settled in recent weeks.
Now our focus has to be on doing it well, on serving our audiences as our neighbors, giving them the information that they need to cope and make difficult decisions, and ditching the peripheral, the banal and the mindless.
We are in one of the darkest moments in our national history. Journalism is among the few lights we have left.
A Failure, But Not Of Prediction by Scott Alexander
Axios Mar 6, 2020 - Health Coronavirus panic sells as alarmist information flies on social media . Neal Rothschild, Sara Fischer
Many of the coronavirus stories getting shared the most on social media are packaged to drive fear rather than build understanding about the illness, according to NewsWhip data provided to Axios.
Why it matters: Social media greases and amplifies dramatic headlines, while more functional or nuanced information gets squashed.
Details: The English-language story shared the most on Facebook since the outbreak began was "Coronavirus declared global health emergency" from the BBC.
Some of the other top-performing articles featured largely debunked claims, such as that the coronavirus came from bats and that it might have leaked from a laboratory.
One of the biggest dangers during this outbreak is the misinformation that has been spreading about the virus, experts say. (Here's a Foreign Policy article debunking the myth that it came from bat soup, and a Poynter article about the three waves of misinformation about the virus.)
Moving and evolving facts: (Maintaining story over time, updates, etc. )
Jon Allsop notes in March 16, 2020 CJR newsletter, advice and analysis that seemed pressing a week ago is quaint and complacent today. The impossible has become commonplace before our eyes.
Example: Vox Media A coronavirus reading guide for the perplexed, the anxious, and the obsessive Confused about coronavirus? Here’s a list of the articles, papers, and podcasts we’ve found most useful. By Roge Karma and Ezra Klein Mar 14, 2020, 9:40am EDT
Uncertainties, skepticism of the pandemic data,
Keeping up with the 'firehose' of news about Covid-19 Reliable Sources Source: CNN
Helen Branswell, who covers infectious diseases for Stat News, says "there's just so much information coming at us at any one time, it is really hard to keep up." She says the press should keep emphasizing that "we can't wish this away." The virus "is just going to keep infecting people if we give it an opportunity to do so."
The journalism that matters is local.
We’ve known for a while that the loss of good local news outlets not only imperils a working democracy, but leaves a void in thoughtful journalism. We have too many (cheap) talking heads and not enough (expensive) concrete and useful information. This crisis reinforces that.
The need for actionable information.
What we need is specific, actionable information: What’s the capacity of hospitals in our town? Are there viral hot spots in particular neighborhoods? Which stores have groceries? The Seattle Times has delivered all of this as it has covered the community in Washington State that has been hit hardest. But so much more is needed. This crisis may, eventually, help us realize that finding a financial support system for local journalism is critical to the way we live.
Avoid focusing on Trump and the political “horse race”
The Trump obsession is dangerous. The media’s hate-fawning over Donald Trump, particularly on cable television, has been a problem since he ran for president: the live shots of his circling plane, the amplification of his absurd tweets, the showcasing of his rallies as anything other than campaign set pieces.
He was cravenly wrong, and will likely have to answer for his politicization of one of the darkest moments in our history. Fox News will have to do the same. Our solution is not to fall into the same trap again. We have now seen that not even matters of life and death are immune from his narcissism and misinformation. Shame on us (the media) if we revert to the norm after this passes.
Covering politics as sport needs to end.
Remember the campaign for the presidency? Remember when we obsessed over which jabs this person got in on one of the dozens of ratings-grabby TV debates or which nasty campaign ad lit up Twitter? Remember when we used to cover the American presidency and the race to fill the office as a reality show? Much of media treatment of political debate has gone the same way, further cramping the spaces in which reasonable people can engage in rational discourse.
Our political press has to cover our government not with scorecards and spin rooms, but with a depth and a seriousness that reflects what is at stake. I thought after the enormous failures in coverage of the 2016 presidential race that political journalism would be in for a wholesale revamp. It didn’t happen, but this story has only reinforced how urgent that need remains.
Provide accurate, science based news
That tendency in recent weeks has endangered lives. Even as scientists were telling us that Trump’s early dismissal of the virus was wrong and potentially life-threatening, journalists continued to air it and debate it and both-sides it, as if there were an alternate scientific approach to fighting the virus. There was not.
The challenge: How to explain the science
More than a science story, understanding and communicating uncertainty
Contextualizing and communicating complex topics
Sources of information
The challenges of experts: The mainstream media journalist expertise
“ We will continue to infuse our journalism with expertise by having lawyers cover law, doctors cover health, and veterans cover war. We will continue to search for the most compelling ways to tell stories, from prose to virtual reality to whatever comes next.”
Data and visualization vs. words (Medium is the message)
Data isn’t the whole story. Journalists love numbers. Which is strange given the level of innumeracy in the profession. We see it in politics, where polling data is given much more prominence and credibility than it deserves, and we’ve seen it in the coverage of the virus, where news organizations, largely unsuccessfully, have tried to get their heads around flattening curves and wildly divergent projections.
Use projections as they are meant
This virus is horrific on every level. But what most scares us—and what terrifies reporters—is the fact that most predictions are at best a guess. To compensate, news reports feverishly wield the projections, which are empty information appearing real. Let’s hold off on them for now, and focus on what science says it knows for certain and what actions people can take now to prepare for whatever will come next.
Provide context and frame for the topic and the stories
This national crisis, in all of its horror and heartache, has taught us, even in these early days, that national political decision-making is deadly serious. Healthcare policy matters. Economic policy is about keeping people out of bread lines. Credibility and accountability in public office can influence individual decisions that determine whether people live or die.
The media outlet
Business model and citizen access: Paywall and limited access to reporting and resources WSJ
Ownership of the media: Financial motivation (Ad revenue, models)
The content has become increasingly infantilized
The right-wing-media echo chamber is starting to downplay the risk that a second wave poses to Americans.
The Left-wing-media echo chamber is starting to downplay the risk that a second wave poses to Americans. Created an atmosphere of hypervigilance
The Monetizing eco chamber
The Journalist
Cognitive biases of the reporters and the media consumers
Understanding of passions (Cognitive and brain science)
Experiential reporting, private lives
Risk of getting infected: the Wall Street Journal’s Benjamin Mullin reports that cable news networks are planning to pool their coverage of this summer’s Democratic and Republican conventions, due to health concerns.
Financial uncertainties
Argument has turned cruder, ruder, more polarised and less anchored in facts.
The Public : Polarization and passions
The tyranny of the minority (Impact of Twitter )
Blistering flame-thrower about the consequences of the digital revolution.
The noise has magnified
The Future of News From politics and culture, to entertainment and sports, technology has dramatically impacted how people receive and consume news. Innovators and industry leaders discuss how news will evolve as technology continues to disrupt the Fourth Estate. Jan 17, 2018